CATEGORY AUSTRALASIAN DENTIST131 REALITY BITES ickering with imbedded jewels, fulldiamante grillz, early dental tools, and a sort of Shoppe de Horrors arcade of the rather alarming ancestry of modern dentistry, which may provide another clue to our native fears and fascinations around teeth in general, and dentists in particular. If this legacy of early struggles with pain and brutality has left a deep mark in the public psyche, imagine the impact on the dentists themselves, many of whom were surely compassionate, dedicated people seeking to relieve su ering and illness with the tools and conditions of the time? Of course, things have come a stunningly long way – not only because of pain relief, skill, and radically improved knowledge, technology and prestige in dentistry – but also because human kindness, compassion and loving care have never been as generously given as they are by today’s dentist. Perhaps, even with the modern experience of mostly safe, kind, careful and precision dentistry we, as a species, hold the collective memory of darker days? Or perhaps it’s something more than that. Exhibition curator, James Peto, said that the idea came from a book, “ e Smile Stealers” by Richard Barnett. It is described by Amazon as: “An achingly fascinating book [which] follows the evolution of dentistry throughout the world from the Bronze Age to the present day; featuring captivating, grim illustrations of the tools and techniques of dentistry through the ages. e Smile Stealers – Fine and Foul Art of Dentistry, is a redemptive of catalogue of just how very far we have come. e book and resulting exhibition feature a mesmerising menagerie of all things teeth, ranging from etchings and paintings of early tooth-pullers, barbersurgeons and tooth-thieves from public hanging elds; Napoleon’s silver-handled toothbrush; aluminium dentures crafted from the hull of a Japanese ghter plane; frightening-looking drills; to a collection of historic letters to the tooth fairy. “Dear Tooth Fairy, sorry about this but I swallowed my tooth instead of giving it to you but please can I have some monny?” As the collection came together, Mr Peto confessed to discovering “an oftensurprising view of the feelings people harbor about their teeth”. He put much of the strong feeling down to “disparities” in dentistry provided in di erent social settings, which can be interpreted to mean “horrors” in many cases. Take, for example, a carved wooden gure of St. Apollonia, a Christian from Alexandria, Egypt, who was martyred at the hands of the Romans in A.D. 249. e statue depicts the scene as she was tortured to renounce her faith by having her teeth shattered and pulled out, before she willingly jumped into a re rather than concede. Now the patron saint of dental diseases, there are churches in France, Portugal and Eastern Europe where people take their children to rub one of St. Apollonia’s supposed teeth on their gums to cure dental a ictions. ere’s an image, of rows of worn toothbrushes in a lthy open display case provided to children in government care in America. Part of a series of photographs by Christopher Payne of abandoned mental health facilities from the early 2000’s, the toothbrushes speak chillingly loud about the su ering, and intimate violations of the vulnerable in society. A British Dental Association poster from the 1960s boldly shows an illustration of a dump truck over- lled with teeth, announcing with triumph, “4 tons of children’s teeth extracted every year!” Which means that there is still a thriving generation among us still holding some potentially unsettling memories associated with dental care . e progression from extraction by door slamming, sedation by alcohol, restraint by rope, physical force and a creative range of specialized chairs, is celebrated with exhibits showing a dazzlingly fast improvement to dentistry over less than a hundred years, no doubt a relief as much to the patients as to the dentists themselves. Perhaps this is partly a result of more than a few urgent requests to the Tooth Fairy for an intervention. u
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